27 BC The title Augustus was bestowed upon Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian by the Roman Senate.
1120 The Council of Nablus was held, establishing the earliest surviving written laws of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.
1362 A storm tide in the North Sea destroyed the German city of Rungholt on the island of Strand.
1412 The Medici family was appointed official banker of the Papacy.
1492 The first grammar of the Spanish language, was presented to Queen Isabella I.
1547 Ivan IV of Russia (Ivan the Terrible) became Tsar of Russia.
1556 Philip II became King of Spain.
1581 The English Parliament outlawed Roman Catholicism.
1605 The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha(Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes was published in Madrid.
1707 The Scottish Parliament ratified the Act of Union, paving the way for the creation of Great Britain.
1853 – Andre Michelin, French industrialist, was born (d. 1931).
1853 Gen Sir Ian Hamilton, British military commander, was born (d. 1947).
1874 Robert W. Service, Canadian poet, was born (d. 1958).
1883 The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil Service, was passed.
1896 Defeat of Cymru Fydd at South Wales Liberal Federation AGM, Newport, Monmouthshire.
1900 The United States Senate accepted the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounced its claims to the Samoan islands.
1901 Frank Zamboni, American inventor, was born (d. 1988).
1902 – Eric Liddell, Scottish runner, was born (d. 1945).
1903 William Grover-Williams, English-French racing driver and WWIIresistance fighter, was born (d. 1945).
1906 Diana Wynyard, British actress, was born (d. 1964).
1908 – Ethel Merman, American actress and singer, was born (d. 1984).
1909 Ernest Shackleton’s expedition found the magnetic South Pole.
1919 The United States ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, authorising Prohibition in the United States one year after ratification.
1941 The War Cabinet approved the formation of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) to enable the Royal New Zealand Air Force to release more men for service overseas. Within 18 months a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and Women’s Royal Naval Service had been created.
1942 Crash of TWA Flight 3, killing all 22 aboard, including film starCarole Lombard.
1944 Jim Stafford, American singer and songwriter, was born.
1948 Dalvanius Prime, New Zealand entertainer, was born (d. 2002).
1952 – King Fuad II of Egypt, was born.
1959 Sade, Nigerian-born singer, was born.
1970 Buckminster Fuller received the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
1979 The Shah of Iran fled Iran with his family and relocated in Egypt.
1986 First meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force.
1991 The United States went to war with Iraq, beginning the Gulf War(U.S. Time).
1992 El Salvador officials and rebel leaders signed the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City ending a 12-year civil war that claimed at least 75,000.
2001 – The First surviving Wikipedia edit was made: UuU
2001 Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.
2001 US President Bill Clinton awarded former President Theodore Roosevelt a posthumous Medal of Honor for his service in the Spanish-American War.
2002 The UN Security Council unanimously established an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
2003 The Space Shuttle Columbia took off for mission STS-107, its final one. Columbia disintegrated 16 days later on re-entry.
2006 Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was sworn in as Liberia’s new president becoming Africa’s first female elected head of state.
2013 – An estimated 41 international workers were taken hostage in an attack in the town of In Aménas, Algeria.
2016 – 33 out of 126 freed hostages were injured and 23 killed in 2016 Ouagadougou attack in Burkina Faso.
Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia
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